The Omloop Het Nieuwsblad opened the European racing season today. The one-day event in Ghent, Belgium was 125.7 kilometres, raced in difficult weather. Emma Johansson (Swe-Red Sun Cycling Team) won the race, Liesbet de Vocht (Bel-Nederland Bloeit) finished second and Grace Verbeke (Bel-Lotto Ladies) took third. Best result for Cervélo TestTeam was Regina Bruins (Ned) who was part of the break away that made it to the finish.

"The first and second climbs were not really that hard and the peloton took it easy," said Regina Bruins. "On the third climb my teammate told me to go and I tried to reach the group. On the fourth climb I did reach the group and than we started to ride. It was really hard and I did what I could do. At that point we had a good situation, because I was with Sarah who was also part of the five-rider group. But Sarah, who normally is the fastest sprinter of us all eventually had to let the group go and for me, who is not sprinter, it became much more difficult. I tried to attack but the girls stayed on my wheel and I was not able to. For today's race I can be satisfied, but I have to complete one more step in my training to be really good and I will work at it over the next few weeks."

"We had a really good plan for today so we could fully benefit from the strong riders we have," said Mirjam Melchers. "But it was very chaotic and a few of us got a bit behind on the climb where we should have started coming together. But everybody was a bit in the back and you know this can happen. Eventually we had two of our riders in the front group (Sarah and Regina) and I was behind them with our sprinter Kirsten Wild and Iris Slappendel. Then Kirsten crashed on the cobblestones and so we had to depend solely on the two in the front. They did a lot of work in that group and that was not easy with these bad conditions."

"Today's team result was nice, but it is only one place that counts," said Egon van Kessel, sports director. "It went a bit wrong today because we did have two riders in a break of five. I told them to do nothing and to wait for our sprinter Kirsten Wild who was behind with two more riders from our team (Mirjam and Iris). Then Kirsten crashed and Sarah was dropped out of the front group. So from a perfect situation it changed dramatically and we lost the race."